Portion of the Sea

by Christine Lemmon

  I mastered the percolator with only a few burns on my arms, and coffee fast became my specialty. I allowed no journalist’s coffee to reach below the half-full point. And I learned who liked it black, with cream, with cream and sugar, or just sugar. I never had to interrupt their interviews or discussions to ask who wanted more. I could see who did.

  It was in these moments of pouring that I learned I had a natural sense of determining the newsworthiness of things. “McDonalds,” I heard one journalist say to another as I was pouring his coffee one afternoon. “They want me to look into it as a possible story.”

  “And why would some hamburger stand in California be newsworthy to Chicagoans?” asked the journalist next to him.

  “Ordinary people are lining up for fifteen-cent burgers, five-cent coffee, and twenty-cent milkshakes, and they’re being served within fifteen seconds.”

  “And that deserves a headline?”

  “Not to me, it doesn’t. It’s a fluff story.”

  “I disagree,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut any longer. “We’re talking more than burgers, here. These guys are doing what Henry Ford had done for cars. To me, that’s news.”

  Then that journalist took a sip of his coffee—for he was on a fifteen-second sipping pattern—and he looked at me and said, “Lydia, the biggest challenge to my job is deciphering what’s newsworthy and what’s not.”

  “Mass production of hamburgers sounds like news to me,” I said.

  “You may have a good point,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  I poured so many cups of coffee over the course of two years that the paper got thicker and deadlines were hardly missed and journalists were talking and thinking faster than ever. I also started drinking it, and ideas flooded my mind. I even wondered whether I should desert my pursuit of journalism and open a drive-through coffee shop instead. If people were lining up to buy hamburgers, then maybe they’d line up for coffee. But it was only a coffee high that gave me that thought, and when it died down, I knew I had a better shot at becoming a journalist then opening a place where people actually drive by a window to buy coffee.

  Besides, I liked working at the paper. All kinds of exciting and newsworthy things were happening in the world: the school desegregation ruling, Brown v. Board of Education; cigarettes cause cancer; the first nuclear-powered submarine launches in Connecticut; the first mass vaccination of children against polio begins in Pittsburgh; the first successful kidney transplant; a Memphis, Tennessee, radio station is the first to air an Elvis Presley record; Boeing unveils its jet aircraft, the “707”; and the Red Scare has families building bomb shelters.

  The more I became absorbed with what was happening out there, in the world outside my front doors, the more I wanted to go out and cover that world myself. And I still believed wholeheartedly that anything was possible. Marlena’s words had landed on me like seeds on fertile soil, but it was up to me to nurture them from dreams into accomplishments.

  I also looked up to other women who were paving the way and I enjoyed reading articles by Virginia Marmaduke. She was one of the first women to cover hard news in the “windy city,” and to break away from the fashion, entertainment and society pages.

  And I knew of a female working as a journalist over at the Chicago Defender, the African-American newspaper. Payne, her name was. She began her career while working as a hostess at an Army Special Services club in Japan. She let a visiting reporter from the Chicago Defender read her journal, and in it were detailed accounts of her own experiences and those of African-American soldiers. The reporter then took the journal back to Chicago, and soon her observations were being used by that paper. I thought, “If she could do that, then I can do what I plan to do.”

  But then my father suffered a minor heart attack several months before my high school graduation, and I had to quit my job at the paper. I told myself it was only temporary, until he got well again. He didn’t need any stress coming from me. He had enough from the bank. While he was in the hospital recovering, they worked a plan out with him. As he had explained it to me, he was now like a consultant, a financial consultant. He could do his work from anywhere, and Doctor Conroy strongly suggested he take time off.

  After several months of seeing Lloyd do nothing but lie around watching The Millionaire, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Jack Benny Show, and his favorite, the The $64,000 Question, I reminded him of his promise from two years ago, to take a break and spend time with me.

  “Sit down,” Lloyd insisted as the ferry pulled away from the dock at Punta Rassa. I had been pacing back and forth, like a prisoner ready to be set free, and I was nervous about returning the treasure to Marlena. But I had kept it all this time safely buried deep within my pajama drawer, and I only hoped she would see that I had taken very good care of it. I sat down beside my father and pulled out the day’s newspaper. It was already late morning, and back home I usually had the entire thing skimmed by sunrise.

  “Lydia,” he said. “You’re seventeen. You shouldn’t be reading all those nerve-wracking stories. They’re not good for you.”

  “Pop, the Reds don’t scare me,” I said. “I like staying in orbit.”

  “In what?”

  “Informed,” I said. “I have to stay informed with current events if I am to become a journalist.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Whatever, darling,” he said as he bent down and reached into the bag he had been toting around since the airport. “I did buy you a gift. I think it might come in handy now that it’s just going to be you and me for a few months. Why don’t you put that paper down and peek inside?”

  I set the paper on the floor of the boat and set my foot over it so it wouldn’t blow away in the spring breeze. I couldn’t stand the thought of missing a day of news. I took the bag from my father and reached inside and pulled out a heavy book … A Betty Crocker Cookbook, I said. “Thank you, Father.” I could feel the smile on my face turning into a frown.

  I didn’t want to disappoint him, not now. Although the cardiologist assured us there had been no damage to his heart and all looked fine, I didn’t want to add any additional pressure. I hid my disappointment so it wouldn’t burden him any. It pained me that he wasn’t proud of anything I had been working for over at the newspaper. To him, the criterion of success for a daughter was still whether or not she got and kept a man of good reputation and background. There were many occasions in which he would bring home a young executive from the bank for dinner and I knew he was trying to fix me up. But once I started talking about my job at the paper, the two would raise their eyebrows and often their glasses and quickly lose interest in what I had to say.

  “So, what are you going to cook me for dinner tonight, dear?” Lloyd asked as the ferry headed across the bay.

  I quickly flipped through the pages of the cookbook without really looking at the recipes and said, “You know I’ve never cooked before. Do you think it was a mistake not bringing along a chef or housekeeper?” I closed the book and dropped it in the bag.

  “I regret not giving you a more female orientation toward life earlier on,” he said. “But it’s time you learn now.”

  I bit my lip, for he had rattled my cage. It suddenly dawned on me that maybe his taking me on a getaway was more than just that. It was a ploy to domesticate a girl that didn’t want to be domesticated. I didn’t want to cook elaborate meals. I didn’t like eating them. I could get by on coffee–a good strong cup of percolated coffee–and a bagel. My stomach felt queasy. My father giving me the cookbook made me feel like a victim of a smear campaign, the kind I read about in the papers all the time. And I wanted a confession from him, but I knew he would only profess his innocence.

  When the ferry dropped us off, we checked into the cottage we had rented on Sanibel’s east end. Lloyd and I differed on what we were to do first. He thought I should go grocery shopping and he would go fishing, alone, and then return for a home-cooked dinner. I wanted to go for a walk on the beach, alone, so I could
secretly find Marlena’s cottage and after enduring endless days and nights with a guilty conscious, return the journal to her.

  “If you could just wait a couple of hours,” I told my father. “I’ll be back and I’ll go fishing with you.” I didn’t want him going alone. I was nervous about his health and didn’t want him doing much of anything without me.

  “Fishing is for men, dear. Maybe I can catch something good and bring it home for you to cook,” he said, flipping to the index of my new Betty Crocker Cookbook. He was looking up fish recipes for me.

  “That’s it,” I said. “I’m going fishing with you. I’ll go to the beach when we get back.”

  XIV

  “DUNGAREES?” LLOYD ASKED WHEN he saw me.

  “What’s wrong with dungarees?” I asked as I tied a scarf around my head, babushka style. “We’re going fishing.”

  His eyes looked at me as if I were a project at work that went bad. “You’d rather I slip into a party dress and white gloves?” I laughed and shook my head.

  “Party dress, no,” he said. “But a blouse and jumper might have been more appropriate.”

  “There’s so many injustices in the world, Daddy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Girdles and petticoats namely,” I said as we strolled along a pathway through dense trees. “There’s a reason why men are considered more athletic and physical than women. It’s because, historically, women’s bodies have been squelched inside corsets and girdles, and if you ask me, it was a victory for women when the corsets were tossed, but it’s time we toss the girdles as well and the skirts and catch up physically with you men.”

  “Lydia,” he said. “Promise me you’ll never share your views on that with anyone but me, you hear?”

  I rolled my eyes, and when I noticed Lloyd breathing heavily, I stopped talking of things that upset him and slowed our walking pace as well. Doctor Conroy said that walking was a good activity at this point in his recovery, but walking and talking about my views toward life probably wasn’t.

  “Do you hear that music?” I asked as we reached a sandy road. “Where’s that coming from?”

  We stopped and listened. I liked it, and so I walked further until I saw a boy around my age sitting under a tree playing an instrument. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and like the fronds of a palm, his hair stuck out in all directions and hung down shading his eyes.

  We stood there still and silent like two audience members at the symphony, front-row seats. I squeezed my father’s hand to let him know how amazing I found the music. When the boy blew into his instrument, his cheeks puffed out as if he might float off into the air and pop, but when he cast his eyes toward me, the music stopped, and he stared as if he hadn’t ever seen a girl before. I stared right back at him, into his eyes, brown like a puppy dog’s. I typically never rested my eyes on a boy for more than a two-second count, and unless he were a journalist and I had something important to say, I usually had no desire for talking with boys. But this one played his music so passionately that I stared for about three and a half seconds before looking away and probably another four seconds or longer after that. Still, he was all boy, dirt on his face and all, I noticed.

  “Excuse me,” Lloyd said, interrupting the way the boy and I were looking at one another. “We’re looking for the Sanibel Fishing Pier.”

  “You’re just about there,” he answered, reeling his eyes off me. “I’m about to head over there myself. Just give me a second, and I’ll go with you.”

  He put the tip of his finger over his lips like he might blow me a kiss but instead closed those lips and blew hard. I watched for his cheeks to blow out like they had before, but they didn’t this time. He put the instrument back up to his mouth and did it all again, this time on the mouthpiece. When he finished, he tucked his instrument into a carrying case and looked up at us again. “I’ll bet you’re looking for Max Crowe.”

  “We are,” said Lloyd.

  “Max is my dad. He’s out there waiting for you.” We started walking, and the boy looked at me and asked, “You’re going to watch the big boys fish?”

  I was offended. “What do you mean by that? Do I look like I’m on my way to a soda fountain?”

  “She says she wants to fish,” Lloyd said on my behalf.

  The boy smiled. “We sure could use something pretty to attract the fish our way.”

  He epitomized the definition of a huckster, and I wanted to slap him. I wanted to tell him “D.D.T.”, which means drop dead twice. I wasn’t used to any boy telling me I was pretty. I know the men my father took home for dinners were attracted to me. I could tell by the way they said “hello” and shook my hand and watched me before dinner was served. But then, once I opened my mouth, they did everything but cover their ears with their hands, trying to make me believe that a girl that talks of ambition is noisy and boisterous and belongs in a rookery full of nesting birds.

  “A girl who fishes is a fine thing,” the boy added, interrupting my percolating thoughts.

  “I appreciate that,” I said.

  Just then a tan-skinned man carrying fishing poles and a bucket greeted us on the pier.

  “Hi, I’m Max. You must be Lloyd.”

  “Pleased to meet you. And this is my daughter Lydia.”

  “Pleasure, Lydia. Looks like you’ve already met my son, Josh. We send him off a couple hundred yards to practice his music. We don’t let him play here on the pier. He’d scare the fish away and probably attract the kind we don’t want,” said Max. “Son, give me a hand with the bait now.”

  Josh walked over to the white bucket, and I followed. “So, what are we using for bait?” I asked.

  He tilted the white bucket for me to look inside. It wasn’t what I expected, and I tried not to have a cow, but when one of the translucent, monstrous creatures spilled out onto my sandal, I jumped and screamed, “Lord God Almighty!” It was the second prayer I had ever said, one stolen from Ava, and I didn’t know where to go from there, but I think I felt a bit of peace and was able to regain my composure for having uttered those three words.

  “So tell me,” I said, switching to my journalistic tone. “What exactly are those things?”

  “Shrimp,” Josh matter-of-factly said as if he hung out with them on a daily basis. “Shrimp are the most universal bait. What did you think they were?”

  “I have no idea—Cooties, maybe,” I said, and we both laughed. But all of a sudden, I felt my stomach curdle, so I sauntered to the edge of the dock, where I bent over and gagged, then dry heaved a moment before standing straight again to look if Josh had seen.

  “You going to be okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I insisted as if it never happened. “I’m just used to seeing shrimp wrapped in fried coconut and coated in lime sauce, not at all naked like those shrimp.”

  We walked over to our fathers, and I was handed a pole. I looked around at all the men that were fishing and I felt good about what I was wearing. I’d look like a fool hooking bait in a jumper and blouse and vomiting over the pier. I intended to do whatever it was that men who go fishing do, and if I was going to catch the biggest and best fish, then I had to be wearing dungarees to do so.

  I could hardly wait to begin. I had so many questions. “Why do you use shrimp?” I asked Max.

  “Most fish are line-shy so from the dock we use the smallest hook, lightest sinker and thinnest line possible,” he explained. “Shrimp are easy to keep alive. They’re cheap and all, but sharks will bite on shrimp.”

  “What types of fish might we catch in this water?”

  “You sound like a journalist,” Josh noticed.

  I could hardly speak I was so flattered. It was the best thing anyone had ever said to me, and I could feel a smile appearing on my face. “That’s exactly what I plan to be,” I said. “I’ve been working at the Windy City Press now for two years every day after school. I’ve applied to college, and I’m waiting to hear if I get accepted. If so, I’ll start in the f
all.”

  “Good for you,” he said.

  Lloyd cleared his voice as one does before speaking into a microphone.

  “I’ve been trying to tell Lydia,” he said, “that nurses are in demand. She’s got steady hands. Look at her with that fishing pole. I think she’d make a great nurse.”

  “But it sounds to me, sir, as if she wants to be a journalist,” Josh replied.

  I tried giving Josh the look that says, “don’t go there,” but instead my eye did its own thing and winked at him, and my mouth, with a mind of its own, gave him a smile.

  “So tell me, boy,” said Lloyd. “You look like you’re about my daughter’s age. What do you plan to do with your future?”

  I felt tremors inside my gut, telling me something was about to erupt. My father had a reputation at the bank. When someone impressed him business-wise, he would carry that person straight to the top, but if they made an error or said anything he perceived as stupid, look out! He’d become like a volcano, his words hot as lava.

  “I just graduated from high school, sir,” he answered. “I’m spending the summer fishing with my dad. Then I’m thinking of chartering.”

  “I wish you the best of luck, son.”

  It was my chance to rescue Josh from the volcano. “So as I was asking before, Max, what types of fish might we catch in these waters?”

  “Pompano, cobia, redfish, grouper, snapper, shark, sea trout, hogfish, amberjack, barracuda, whiting, flounder …”

  I was beginning to relax and understand why it was that men fish, when all of a sudden I felt commotion at the end of my line. “I’ve got something,” I announced with loud pride and confidence. I looked at the men on the pier to be sure they had heard me, and I said it again. “I think I’ve caught my fish for the day.”

  “Start reeling,” instructed Max.